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Weekly outlook for May 9-13

May 7, 2011

Here is a weekly outlook for May 9th to 13th that highlights the main news items and reports related to US, Canada and China.

(all times GMT):

Monday 9th of May – People Bank of China’s report on New Loans: This monthly report showed the shift in the financial sector in China. In particular the change during the preceding month about the new loans taken in China. The PBC raised during April the reserve requirement ratio of banks in China by 0.5 percent point in an attempt to curb the loans given and slow down the inflation. If the upcoming report will show a reduction in loans given it might prove that PBC’s policy is working (see here previous report);

Tuesday 9th of May tentative– Chinese Trade Balance report: This monthly review regarding the Chinese Trade Balance of goods and services will present the current figures for the month of April 2011; the report will show the changes in import of major commodities including crude oil and metals; seeing that China is among the world largest importer of crude oil and metals, this report will indicate the change in China’s demand for these commodities (see here last report);

Tuesday 9th of May 3.00 – Chinese CPI: The current expectations around the Chinese inflation of April are that it moderately inclined to a annual rate of 5.5%, after it stood on an annual rate of 5.4% during March. The inflation in China indicates the progress in its economic development and based on the result, PBC will decide whether or not to take additional steps in containing the growing inflation;

Wednesday 11th of May 13.30 –Canadian Trade balance: The May Canadian statistics report on Canada’s trade balance regards March 2011. In the April report regarding February 2011, Imports and exports fell during that month: Imports of energy products fell by 9.4% to 3.9 billion CAD; exports of industrial goods declined by 3.0%, to 9.3 billion CAD, and exports of energy products decreased by 8.0% to 8.8 billion CAD;

Wednesday 11th of May 13.30 – Report on American Trade balance: This monthly report will present the changes in imports and exports of goods and services to and from the US, including major commodities such as crude oil for the month of March 2011; The American trade balance for February 2011 showed the goods deficit decreased by 1$ billion compared to January 2011, and the service surplus rose by 0.3$ billion to 13.6$ billion; nonetheless, the goods and services deficit increased by $6.0 billion from February 2010 to February 2011;

Wednesday 11th of May 15.30 – EIA report about Crude oil inventories: The EIA (Energy Information Administration) will present its weekly report on the U.S Petroleum prices and oil stocks; in the previous report, petroleum stocks continued to increase during last week by 7.5 million barrels, a 0.43% increase compared to the previous week. For the week ending on April 29th the oil stocks reached 1,767.6 million barrels. This was the largest injection since August 20th, 2010. (see here my recent review on crude oil stocks);

Thursday 12th of May 13.30 – Department of Labor report – US unemployment claims: For the week ending on April 30th, initial claims increased by 43,000, to reach 431,000 claims; the insured unemployment rate rose to 3.0% a 0.1 percent point increase for the week ending on April 23rd; and the number of insured unemployment was 3.733 million, an increase of 74,000 compared to the previous week’s number (see here my review on the US Economy);

Thursday 12th of May 15.00 – Ben Bernanke, Chairman of Fed, testifies: The Federal Reserve chairman’s is expected to testify before the US senate. Since the stimulus plan of the Federal Reserve in which it bought bonds at 600 billion US dollar is about to end by June. This testimony may reveal if the Fed has additional plans to stimulate the US economy (read here his last testimony);

Thursday 12th of May 15.30 – EIA report about Natural gas storage: the EIA will also issue a weekly report about the recent changes in natural gas storage, production and consumption in the US. In the recent EIA report natural gas storage increased for the fourth straight week, last week by 4.3%; this was a 72 Bcf injection, as the total storage reached 1,757 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states; the natural gas storage was 1% below the 5-year average, and 11.4% below the storage level during the same week in 2010. (see here my recent natural gas storage review);

Friday 13th of May 13.30 – Report on US CPI: This monthly report shows the main changes in the core consumer price index. According to the US Bureau of Labor statistics for March 2011, the CPI rose by 0.5% and over the last 12 months by 2.7%. The main reasons for the rise are related to the gasoline and food prices that account for nearly three quarters of the core CPI increase during March.